Lord knows, he's not a private eye, but God, I wish he were. Like Philip Marlowe, Rumpole is ""a relatively poor man... a common man or he could not go among common people. He has a sense of character, or he would not know his job. He will take no man's money dishonestly and no man's insolence without a due and dispassionate revenge. He is a lonely man and his pride is that you will treat him as a proud man or be very sorry you ever saw him. He talks as the man of his age talks -- that is, with a rude wit, a lively sense of the grotesque, a disgust for sham, and a contempt for pettiness."

So, may I submit for your consideration, Your Honour....

That great defender of most muddled and sinful humanity...

With his jowls a-quiver...

His fondness for Wordsworth, Chateau Thames Embankment and hopeless cases...

His cheroot-puffing and claret-quaffing...

His food-bespeckled robe and raggedy wig...

And his beloved and tattered copy of The Oxford Book of English Verse clutched to his bosom...

For his oratorical outbursts...

His always entertaining jabs at the soft underbelly of hypocrisy, pomposity and upper class twits...

And for standing up for truth, justice, honour and the Golden Thread of Justice...

May I submit for inclusion, Your Honour, this most British of all lawyers...

This proud, this defiant Old Bailey Hack...

With his best gal, Hilda, She Who Must Be Obeyed, standing, NOT amused, by his side...

The one, the only...

HORACE RUMPOLE.

May there always be an England, and may there always be Horace Rumpole to see that justice be done. And thev pompous may squirm.

Your Honour, I rest my case.

****

Rumpole is, of course John Mortimer's rotund, defiant British criminal lawyer who, as brilliantly brought to life by the late, great Australian actor Leo McKern, the star of Rumpole of the Bailey, the popular British courtroom comedy/drama that originally aired on Thames Television in 1978, and soon became popular on both sides of the Atlantic, appearring on the American Public Broadcasting Service as part of its Mystery! series.

Mortimer wrote each and every episode of the television series, and their subsequent novelizations. The show ran, off and on, for seventeen years, an incredible run, and inspired not just the short stories, but novels and two radio series. It was only in 1995, with the publication of theRumpole and the Angel of Death collection, that Mortimer began writing original Rumpole stories (ie: not adapted from his own TV scripts). Sice then, two more collections have appeared, and an original novel, Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders, as well.

The pilot episode and the first two television series were adapted for BBC Radio 4 in 1980 under the title of Rumpole: The Splendours and Miseries of an Old Bailey Hack, starring Maurice Denham as Rumpole and Margot Boyd as Hilda (Denham subsequently popped up several times on the television show as Justice Gwent-Evans in Series Four and Five).

In the autumn of 2003, four new 45-minute plays were broadcast by BBC Radio starring Timothy West and Prunella Scales.

Mortimer has written numerous other novels and plays, and three volumes of autobiography, but he's always claimed his heart belongs to Rumpole. A former barrister himself, Mortimer drew upon both his own 36 years of experiences as an old Bailey hack, and that of his father, a blind divorce lawyer. According to his bio "Much like Rumpole, Mortimer adores good food, enjoys a bottle of claret before dinner, loves Dickens, and fights for liberal causes."

UNDER OATH

"...every once in a while a character and an actor fit together so precisely that is becomes hard to imagine one without the other (Sean Connery and James Bond, Jeremy Brett and Sherlock Holmes).... McKern's jowls, bulbous nose, the erratic eyebrows were made to fit the eccentric, irrepressibly snide barrister who is as "lovable as a grumpy old panda."
-- Robert Goldberg, television critic,The Wall Street Journal

"Yes, I know Mortimer did lots of other things. He was a lawyer and a novelist, a gadfly and a warrior of the literary trenches, a man of letters and a bit of a rake, perhaps. But to me and millions of others he'll always be simply the man who created Horace Rumpole.

Anyone who thinks literature is somehow inherently superior on some intellectual level to television has never really watched an episode of RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY, one of the cleverest, most literate and most sustained lancings of society's boils to ever come from the ranks of crime fiction. In ANY medium.

That most of those scripts were eventually -- and quite successfully -- turned into prose stories and novels by Mortimer is practically moot.

It's just too bad too many American's unease with and/or aversion to British accents and customs prevented this PBS staple from reaching a larger audience, because there have been damn few crime shows to have ever maintained the level of quality Mortimer achieved with RUMPOLE, on television and later (after the death of beloved character actor Leo McKern) in print.

Hypocrisy, class and racial prejudice, the insufferable smugness of the powerful, the human-sized holes in the legal system, the nature of "justice," and even the on-going tug of war between the sexes-- all were pierced, time and again, by Mortimer's scathing but somehow gentle wit.

There was rarely any sign of mean spiritedness about the Rumpole series. For all their faults and foibles, there was an obvious, almost Wodehouse-like fondness on Mortimer's part for Horace, Hilda, Guthrie, Old Tom et al; for all those endearingly flawed miscreants who populated the Old Bailey.

Which is without a doubt one major reason I and countless others were drawn back again and again to that world. Sure, we could empathize and even sympathize with the various trials and tribulations, both personal and professional, of one old Bailey hack, but it was Mortimer's genius and obvious affection for his characters that drew us back.

All better, smarter lawyers, perhaps, but who would you rather spend a long lunch hour at Pomeroy's Wine Bar with?

So please, for those of you lucky enough to have had the pleasure of having encountered Mr. Rumpole over the years, let's all raise a glass of Chateau Thames Embankment, light up a short, smelly cigar and toast his creator, He Who Will Be Missed."-- Kevin Burton Smith, The Rap Sheet, January 16, 2009 (upon learning of Mortimer's death)

"Rumpole and the Confession of Guilt"Aired: December 16, 1975Created by John MortimerWritten by John MortimerDirector:Robert KnightsStarring Leo Mckern as HORACE RUMPOLEand Joyce Heron as Hilda RumpoleAlso starring Herbert NorvilleThis "lost episode" served as the pilot for the subsequent series, commissioned from John Mortimer by the BBC as part of the Play for Today anthology series.

RUMPOLE: THE SPLENDOURS AND MISERIES OF AN OLD BAILEY HACK(July 21 to October 13, 1980, BBC Radio 4)
13 episodesWriters: John MortimerStarring Maurice Denham as HORACE RUMPOLEand Margot Boyd as "She Who Must Be Obeyed"

"Rumpole and the Confession of Guilt" (July 21, 1980)

"Rumpole and the Dear Departed"

"Rumpole and the Gentle Art of Blackmail"

"Rumpole and the Rotten Apple"

"Rumpole and the Man of God"

"Rumpole and the Defence of Guthrie Featherstone"

"Rumpole and the Show Folk"

"Rumpole and the Fascist Beast"

"Rumpole and the Case of Identity"

"Rumpole and the Expert Witness"

"Rumpole and the Course of True Love"

"Rumpole and the Perils of the Sea"

"Rumpole and the Age of Retirement" (October 13, 1980)

RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY
(2003, BBC Radio 4)
4 45-minute playsStarring Timothy West stars as HORACE RUMPOLE
and Prunella Scales as "She Who Must Be Obeyed"

"Rumpole and the Primrose Path"

"Rumpole and the Scales of Justice"

"Rumpole and the Vanishing Juror"

"Rumpole Redeemed"

SHORT STORIES

"Rumpole and the Alternative Society" (1978, Rumpole of the Bailey)

"Rumpole and the Heavy Brigade" (1978, Rumpole of the Bailey)

"Rumpole and the Honourable Member" (1978, Rumpole of the Bailey)

"Rumpole and the Learned Friends" (1978, Rumpole of the Bailey)

"Rumpole and the Married Lady" (1978, Rumpole of the Bailey)

"Rumpole and the Younger Generation" (1978, Rumpole of the Bailey)

"Rumpole and the Age for Retirement" (1979, The Trials of Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Case of Identity" (1979, The Trials of Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Course of True Love" (1979, The Trials of Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Fascist Beast" (1979, The Trials of Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Man of God" (1979, The Trials of Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Showfolk" (1979, The Trials of Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Boat People" (1981, Regina v Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Confession of Guilt" (1981, Regina v Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Dear Departed" (1981, Regina v Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Expert Witness" (1981, Regina v Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Gentle Art of Blackmail" (1981, Regina v Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Rotten Apple" (1981, Regina v Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Spirit of Christmas" (1981, Regina v Rumpole)

"Rumpole and the Female of the Species" (1983, Rumpole and the Golden Thread)

"Rumpole and the Genuine Article" (1983, Rumpole and the Golden Thread)

"Rumpole and the Golden Thread" (1983, Rumpole and the Golden Thread)

"Rumpole and the Last Resort" (1983, Rumpole and the Golden Thread)

"Rumpole and the Old Boy Net" (1983, Rumpole and the Golden Thread)

"Rumpole and the Sporting Life" (1983, Rumpole and the Golden Thread)

"Rumpole and the Winter Break" (Mid-December 1984, EQMM; also Rumpole's Last Case)

"Rumpole and the Blind Tasting" (1987, Rumpole's Last Case)

"Rumpole and the Bright Seraphim" (1987, Rumpole's Last Case)

"Rumpole and the Judge's Elbow" (1987, Rumpole's Last Case)

"Rumpole and the Official Secret" (1987, Rumpole's Last Case)

"Rumpole and the Old, Old Story" (1987, Rumpole's Last Case)

"Rumpole's Last Case" (1987, Rumpole's Last Case)

"Rumpole and Portia" (1988, Rumpole and the Age of Miracles)

"Rumpole and the Age of Miracles" (1988, Rumpole and the Age of Miracles)

"Rumpole and the Barrow Boy" (1988, Rumpole and the Age of Miracles)

"Rumpole and the Bubble Reputation" (1988, Rumpole and the Age of Miracles)

"Rumpole and the Chambers Party" (1988, Rumpole and the Age of Miracles)

"Rumpole and the Quality of Life" (1988, Rumpole and the Age of Miracles)

"Rumpole and the Tap End" (1988, Rumpole and the Age of Miracles)

"Rumpole à la Carte" (1990, Rumpole à la Carte)

"Rumpole and the Quacks" (1990, Rumpole à la Carte)

"Rumpole and the Right to Silence" (1990, Rumpole à la Carte)

"Rumpole and the Summer of Discontent" (1990, Rumpole à la Carte)

"Rumpole at Sea" (1990, Rumpole à la Carte)

"Rumpole for the Prosecution" (1990, Rumpole à la Carte)

"Rumpole and the Children of the Devil" (1992, Rumpole on Trial)

"Rumpole and the Eternal Triangle" (1992, Rumpole on Trial)

"Rumpole and the Family Pride" (1992, Rumpole on Trial)

"Rumpole and the Miscarriage of Justice" (1992, Rumpole on Trial)

"Rumpole and the Reform of Joby Jonson" (1992, Rumpole on Trial)

"Rumpole and the Soothsayer" (1992, Rumpole on Trial)

"Rumpole on Trial" (1992, Rumpole on Trial)

"Rumpole and the Hanging Judge" (1993, Great Tales of Crime and Detection)

"Hilda's Story" (1995, Rumpole and the Angel of Death)

"Rumpole and the Angel of Death" (1995, Rumpole and the Angel of Death)

"Rumpole and the Little Boy Lost" (1995, Rumpole and the Angel of Death)

"Rumpole and the Model Prisoner" (1995, Rumpole and the Angel of Death)

"Rumpole and the Rights of Man" (1995, Rumpole and the Angel of Death)

"Rumpole and the Way Through the Woods" (1995, Rumpole and the Angel of Death)

"Rumpole and the Younger Generation" (1995; published also as separate book)

"Rumpole and the Nanny Society" (June 1997, EQMM)

"Rumpole and the Absence of Body" (September/October 1999, EQMM)

"Rumpole and the Actor Laddie (June 2000, EQMM)

"Rumpole and the Old Familiar Faces" (20001, The Strand Christmas)

"Rumpole and the Remembrance of Things Past" (2002, Rumpole Rests His Case)

"Rumpole and the Asylum Seekers" (2002, Rumpole Rests His Case)

"Rumpole and the Camberwell Carrot" (2002, Rumpole Rests His Case)

"Rumpole and the Actor Laddie" (2002, Rumpole Rests His Case)

"Rumpole and the Teenage Werewolf" (2002, Rumpole Rests His Case)

"Rumpole Rests His Case" (2002, Rumpole Rests His Case)

"Rumpole and the Teenage Werewolf" (2002, The Strand #9)

"Rumpole and the Primrose Path" (2002, The Strand; also 2003, Rumpole and the Primrose Path)